


Happy

by caricari



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 06:03:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caricari/pseuds/caricari
Summary: A little bit of action and a lot of angst on a couch in the back of a bookshop, in Soho. Set one year and a few days before the end of the world...





	Happy

It was the saddest thing the angel had ever seen, and he had seen quite a lot of sad things in his time. He found it folded into quarters, very, very neatly inside his friend’s jacket. Well, not inside the jacket - that would have been snooping - he found it when it fell out of said jacket, as he picked it up from the demon had left it, on the bookshop floor.

The early hours of the morning had come and gone. Dawn was creeping closer and the angel’s friend was sleeping soundly on Aziraphale's uncomfortable couch, one arm under his cheek and the rest of his limbs arranged haphazardly around himself. The angel had been watching him from the doorway. He enjoyed watching Crowley sleep occasionally, when he could not find enough reasons not to, or enough ways to distract himself. He had been picking through an old catalogue to distract himself, tonight - trying to track down a certain encyclopaedia that he had sold eighty years ago, hoping he could beg it back off some relatives of the original buyer. The activity had not been absorbing enough, however. As he had wandered through, to make himself a hot drink, the sight of his friend draped languidly across the couch had caught his attention and Aziraphale had rather lost the thread of what he was doing. He had been arrested in the doorway, one hand on the frame, watching the demon sleep. 

Crowley looked peaceful in slumber. When he was awake, his face was always drawn in pointed disinterest, or mischief, or amusement, (often directed at the angel). He was expressive, full of little jokes and smiles, teases and grins, but always slightly cautious. When he slept, however, all of that caution slid right out of him. His forehead grew smooth. The angle of his mouth became softer. His body loosened around him, long limbs becoming graceful in repose. His endlessly moving hands relaxed. The effect was rather beautiful. 

Standing in the doorway, the angel caught himself watching those hands, eyes tracing the sharp edge of a thumb up to the notch of a slender wrist. Crowley had beautifully delicate wrists. They were a point of fascination, for Aziraphale, who secretly wanted to see if his fingers would wrap all the way around one of them. It was not a very angelic thought, he knew. It had just sort of snuck up on him one day, several hundred years ago, and refused to budge despite the twisting sense of shame it caused him. Despite his best efforts, Aziraphale knew he was not a very good angel. It just didn’t seem to come naturally, like it did for the rest of them. There just seemed to be too much love in him for Earthly things; for food, and wine, and deep breaths of air, and the touch of skin on skin. Aziraphale supposed, standing in the doorway, that if it were just the touch of skin on skin it might make him a bad angel but not a terribly blasphemous one. He could probably get away with sex, he thought, if he phrased it just right and nobody looked too closely. Sex, he could justify. It was what he really wanted from Crowley that marked him out as a traitor.

Love was what made him stand in doorways, watching the demon sleep. Love for that churning ball of energy that Crowley was, whichever body he inhabited - love for his soul as well as his mortal form. It was love which drove the angel to watch, but it was also love that reigned him in, which stopped him from crossing the distance between them and slipping his fingers around those delicate wrists. Attraction could be forgiven, as a human product of this world, but love was something made by their Creator. Love was something the angel did not get to assign to whomever he chose. His mortal life - the wines he liked, the food he ate, the things he did with his physical body - that, he was allowed to decide, but not love. Aziraphale did not get to decide where he lay his love. There was a plan for that. There were sides for that, and he and Crowley were not on the same one. 

War was brewing. Heaven and Hell were rallying their armies and the final stage for their great battle was set to dawn, on Earth. It had been ten years, to the night, since Crowley had called him to tell him about the child in the basket. It had been nine years and three hundred and sixty four days since the angel agreed to help the demon - their first proper collaboration, in all the years of The Arrangement. The near constant contact of the last decade had drawn them closer than they had been in millennia. All that latent love, all those latent thoughts, which had been so easy to ignore when Crowley was far away or drifting occasionally through Aziraphale’s life, were almost intolerable in proximity. This was not the first time the angel had found himself standing in this doorway, watching the demon sleep. This was not the first time he had been forced to reprimand himself for his desires. He knew the limits his own soul could take. So, he did what he always did when love and attraction and duty began to seethe over one another too terribly. He pushed them aside and concentrated on the little things instead. 

Walking over, he picked up the socks and shoes Crowley had kicked off earlier that evening and laid them carefully beneath the couch. He placed the emptied whisky glass on the table, so the demon wouldn't get up and stand on it in the morning, and vanished a few wrappers and empty crisp packets. Lifting Crowley’s jacket from the floor, he folded it, laying it neatly over the back of the couch. It was then that the small slip of paper fell from somewhere inside the fabric. Aziraphale almost didn’t notice it, to be honest. Despite promising himself to concentrate on the little things, his eyes had been lingering on the little folds of skin at the side of Crowley’s neck, caused by the demon’s head being bent against the arm of the couch. It was lucky the paper distracted him, really, or the angel would have had to spend an extra few hours feeling guilty about what he would like to do to that skin. 

Leaning down, he picked up the folded paper, surprised by its weight. It was parchment, he realised, turning it over in his hands. It felt old, not unlike the rarer books on the shelves of the bookshop. Running his fingers over the folded square, Aziraphale could tell that it had been mended a hundred times over. By all Earthly laws, it should have disintegrated in his hands, but magic held it together. Crowley’s magic - Aziraphale would know his style anywhere. Running his fingertips over the paper, the angel could feel places where it had been mended from candle burns, or distortions caused by water. It had been cared for, with precise attention to detail, and a great deal of care. The paper, whatever it was, meant something to his friend. Something beyond material value. 

For a second or two, the angel dithered over opening it. Even though it had fallen to the floor, and he could have been excused for thinking it might be his, the paper felt inherently personal. Rubbing a thumb over the back of it, Aziraphale mused that it was almost like touching Crowley’s skin, on the rare occasions that he had touched the demon’s skin - while greeting one another, or saying their goodbyes. This paper was part of Crowley in some way. And that made opening it too tempting to resist. 

Throwing a guilty glance toward his friend, to check he was still asleep, the angel unfolded the paper, smoothing its well-worn creases flat in his hand. As soon as his eyes fell upon the handwritten title of the thing, his lips drew back into a smile. He knew this parchment, and it was nothing sinister. It was a list - one the demon had written centuries ago, sitting in the shade of a great basilica in the north of Italy, with the angel by his side. The angel smiled at the memory. It had been a good afternoon. They had been drinking coffee and laughing over some foolish joke. Aziraphale could not remember the joke, now, (it had been something unflattering about one of the demon’s superiors), but he could remember the conversation that followed. He could remember the smell of sea salt in the air as the pair of them had watched the humans moving about the Venetian square, paying their respects to the saints at the great church, or to the god of commercialism at the market stalls. 

Sitting across from Aziraphale, Crowley had thrown some flippant comment about the Venetians wasting their short eternities and the angel had asked the demon what great deeds he planned on doing with his rather longer eternity, if he had such better ideas. Well, he didn’t plan anything as a general rule, Crowley had replied, lounging back in his chair, soft waves of copper hair playing over silk-clad shoulders. Plans tended to make a mess of a perfectly good day. Take this afternoon for instance. He had been wandering aimlessly around the city when he had come across Aziraphale, out liberating innocent god-fearing families from capsized gondolas. Just imagine if he had started the day with a bout of planning, instead. He might have been busy on the other side of town, or on the mainland. They might not have bumped into one another at all. They might not have had such a nice lunch, or found this little cafe, or learned how far the humans had come along with coffee.

“But there must be things you’d like to plan to do,” the angel had pressed the demon. “When you think about it, it's almost shameful all of the things that we haven’t seen and done, given that we've been on Earth for so long. I’ve never been to Malaysia,” he offered, as example. “I’ve sailed past that way and I’ve tried their barley juice, and I liked that rather well, but I’d like to visit properly. I’d love to try the food. Oh, and I hear they have the most beautiful scenery. I was reading some letters, a while back, from a gentleman who trades in the region and he told of this spectacular waterfall. I've never swam in a waterfall.” He sighed, wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to.” Across the table, Crowley had worn a smile halfway between mocking and amused. The angel had flushed a little, and rushed to justifications. “It is mentioned frequently in literature and i’m curious.”

The demon’s smile had softened, slightly. 

“What else are you curious about, angel?” He asked, the shadows of his long pupils just visible behind the shade of his glasses. Aziraphale had always liked that about strong sunlight - you could almost tell where Crowley was looking.

“Well, I should like to climb a mountain,” the angel mused, turning his face to the basilica above them and imagining it was the shadow of a Himalaya. “A tall one. For the view, and to feel the contrast. Did you know, the air is thinner up there?”

“Yeah?”

“And perhaps I’d like to sail out into the ocean, on my own.”

“Can you even sail?”

“Well, I could learn,” Aziraphale puffed up, a little indignantly.

A grin had broken across the demon’s face, at this point, and he had held up one finger and reached into the coat he was wearing. Retrieving a scrap of parchment and pulling a quill from thin air, (to a noise of reproach from the angel), he scratched a few lines out. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Making a list.”

“What on Earth for?” The angel had craned his neck to see what the demon was writing. In slightly wayward print, he saw the words; ‘_Malaysia’, ’waterfall’, ‘mountain’_, and ‘_sailing_’. Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Oh, is this to make it easier to tease me, in the future?”

The demon glanced up, half of his golden eyes visible over top of his glasses. 

“Nope. I don’t make plans, me, remember?” 

“Well then-,”

“I just want a record of all these great things you’re planning on doing with your time here, angel,” he grinned; a silly, endearing little grin, slightly wider on one side where it showed off a dimple. “Go on. Keep talking.” 

“You’re mocking me,” the angel sulked. 

“Oh, I am not…” The demon rolled his eyes. “Well, okay, I am, but only a little bit. Go on,” he nudged Aziraphale’s hand across the table.“I’ll add some too, just to be fair. We could do them together, if you liked? Could be fun.”

Aziraphale could remember eyeing him carefully at this point, not sure whether the whole situation was going come back and bite him on the ass. But, while Crowley’s expression had been playful, it had not been particularly mischievous, and it had been nice sitting in the sun, talking with his friend, drinking coffee, and he could think of a few ideas. There were places the angel could imagine them going, (even if not like Crowley was imagining - not yet. He hadn’t got that far in figuring out what he wanted from the demon by this point). So, he had leant back and they had continued.

Looking down the list, now, Aziraphale could see all the places they had talked of. The top few were his; _‘Malaysia’, ’waterfall’, ‘mountain’, ‘sailing’, ‘learn how to make pasta’, ‘see the world’s biggest cave’, ‘piss off the edge of a volcano’ _(Crowley’s irreverent alteration to ‘_stand on the edge of a volcano_’), ‘_build a house’, ‘milk a cow_’, and, finally, _‘go back to that enormous reef and swim in it’._ (The last time Aziraphale had been down to Australia, the French chap leading the expedition had spent little time hanging around in the shallow waters, his crew being desperate to make land after their long ocean voyage. The angel had always wanted to go back and see the great landscapes beneath the surface, see the brightly coloured fish again). 

Running his hand down another dozen or so lines, he found where Crowley had begun to add his own entries. He saw; _'learn how to eat fire’, ‘own a falcon’, ‘steal the pope’s hat’_, and ‘_find out how bees stay up’. _He remembered laughing at each of them, delighted as he imagined the demon capering about the world, absorbed in petty mayhem for absolutely no purposes other than his own. Eyes sliding down the page, he found the last entry from that afternoon - one he and the demon had decided on together. ‘_Invent a better method of transport than horses’._ Well, humans beat them to that one, Aziraphale thought, eyes following the angle of Crowley’s slanted writing, feeling warmed by memories of that day in Venice. 

As his eyes moved on, however, he saw more entries to the list, lines he could not remember the demon having penned that day. There were quite a few of them - at least half a page below the bit about horses - and dozens of annotations as well, scribbled in the margins. Notes, the angel realised. Notes made after the demon had completed the tasks.

His eyes jerked back to the top again, back to his suggestions. Sure enough, there were notes in their margins, too. Beside the line on milking a cow, the demon had scratched a grammatically incorrect ‘_avoid hoofs_’. The line on volcanoes had a very big tick over the top. Humans had clearly invented pens by the time Crowley got around to Australia because, beside it, the demon had scribbled ‘_so many fish. tell Aziraphale_’ with a ballpoint and drawn a very small sketch of what appeared to be a seahorse. It was rather good. (Aziraphale made a mental note to ask whether the demon had trained under any of their artistic friends, over the years). Further down the page, there were more drawings. The angel’s eyes descended over a few types of exotic bird, something that looked like an eagle, a mountain with a path plotted along one side, and a beautiful illustration of the golden gate bridge. There were small excepts copied out from songs and books, as well - perhaps things Crowley had picked up along his journeys. 

Aziraphale’s eyes travelled over it all greedily. Had he really done all these things? Had he really been to all of these places, for no reason other than he and Aziraphale had decided they might like to one day? 

The angel’s eyes travelled on, to the entires he had not yet read - the ones following on from the dozen they had written together. Like those above, some were annotated, and almost all were crossed out. Most were written in wayward slanted print. A few were written small, as though the demon was half ashamed of wanting them at all. Aziraphale’s stomach gave a strange little twist to see all the things his friend had chased, over the years. 

_‘Solar eclipse in Sahara’_ was near the top, ‘_bloody dark_’ printed sarcastically off to its side. Then came ‘_blues bar_’ and ‘_drive in movie_’. ‘_Come top on pinball machine_ ’ was double checked, then after that a thoroughly scored-through entry saying ‘_Mardi Gras_’, (’_post angel beads_’ scribbled beside it). 

Aziraphale could remember that one, he realised, with a rush. He had received the beaded necklaces by courier from New Orleans, about thirty years ago. There had been a little postcard inside, too, with a few words in Crowley’s untidy handwriting - ‘_You should see this place. Hell is empty. Send angels.’_ \- and a drawing of a little smiley face. The angel still had that postcard, tucked away upstairs in the back of one of his favourite misprint bibles, along with the only photo he had of Crowley and a couple other pieces of memorabilia. He knew it was a risk, keeping it all, but he could not help it. He was a collector, among other things. 

Eyes passing over the Mardi Gras entry a couple more times, the angel read on. 

_‘Watch rocket launch’, ‘meet Einstein_’ (‘_funeral_’ was written beside this, in smaller letters),_ ‘march for something’, ‘win hotdog eating competition’, ‘touch a shark’, ‘live in New York’_ (he had, Aziraphale remembered, for two years, in the early eighties. He had loved it, but he had come back to London anyway. The time difference eventually got to him, Crowley had grumbled, when the angel had pressed him on the matter of why. He had never really adjusted properly - a part of him always felt like it was stuck in Greenwich Mean Time). The angel continued to read. _‘make wireless headphones’, ‘cliff diving’, ’see a golden lancehead snake’, ’kiss’. _

The angel’s eyes stopped there, arrested by the tiny, innocuous word, fitted so casually in-between ‘_see a golden lancehead snake_’ and ‘_buy disgustingly expensive pair of leather gloves_’. It occurred to him, vaguely, that Crowley might mean the pop band, but the angel could also remember him saying before that he wasn’t a huge fan. He liked the makeup but the music wasn’t really his thing. And the world was not capitalised, Aziraphale thought, staring at it. It was just ‘_kiss_’. 

Glancing up from the paper, the angel let his eyes drift over his friend’s face. Could he really have never been kissed, in all his time on Earth? It hardly seemed possible, not in the sort of circles that Crowley had run, not looking as he did. Crowley had always been pretty, whatever shape he shifted his body into, however he chose to dress himself. Aziraphale had seen him turn heads in the shape of a woman and that of a man, as well as in a number of shapes in-between, and a couple that didn’t quite fit any category. Humans had no words for what Crowley was, thought the angel, eyes coming to rest on his friend’s lips, parted very slightly in slumber. The demon was a reaching, seething mass of energy, curious as the young and clever as the ancient. How could something like that have existed on Earth for sixty centuries and have never been kissed? 

Aziraphale looked back down at the paper, reading quickly through the last twenty entries. Sixteen were similar to those that had come before, all crossed out and sarcastically annotated. Four others were scattered amongst them almost like afterthoughts - (but not afterthoughts, the angel could tell, because they were printed just a little too small, just a little too neatly, and they were not crossed out). 

_‘Love’, ‘sex’, ‘home’, ‘happy’. _

Aziraphale felt as if his heart was giving out. A wave of pity such as he had never known rose up inside him. He wanted to rush over to his friend, to kneel down beside him and pull his sleeping form into a tight embrace. Kiss, love, sex, home, happy - they were not things like touching a shark, or climbing a mountain, or even watching an eclipse. The demon must know that. He must, thought the angel, or he wouldn’t have written them out so carefully and left them uncrossed. 

So this is what you want, he thought, looking down at Crowley’s sleeping form. These were the pieces of the world you want to try? But how could he want that? It was not written into Crowley to want to be happy. It was not written into either of them. They were celestial beings, forged for duty. They were made to carry out their respective roles, to further the great plan. They should not even have been capable of imagining happiness - everything the angel had ever been told said they should not be capable. They were not made for human emotions. They were made to serve, to do their duty.

Kiss, love, sex, home, happy. 

Why was that last word the hardest to cope with, wondered the angel? Because it had such human connotations? Because it had more than physical human connotations? Standing in the half light of the closed bookshop, Aziraphale realised that he had never thought this far into what he wanted. The angel might have suggested some vague entries for the list, he might have even carried out one or two of them, but he would never have dared to chase life the way Crowley had chased it these last few hundred years. He had always been so resistant to change, always blamed it on humanity’s influence, always thought it marked him apart from other angels, marked him as less. But now, after reading Crowley’s list, he didn’t think the demon less at all. Indeed, he thought him rather greater. While Aziraphale had been busy compartmentalising and reasoning away mutual attraction, denying himself the chance to love, Crowley had decided he might like to try it all. He might like to take the best from humanity, and grow with it. 

If anyone had asked him, before, what Crowley wanted, Aziraphale would said the same as for himself. The demon likely wanted to fulfil his duties while making the most of what Earth had to offer. He wanted to stop armageddon so that they could continue living as they had been. But that was wrong, the angel thought, staring down at those four little words in his friend’s handwriting. He might want to stop Armageddon but not to continue living as they has been. He wanted to grow. He wanted to become something new, something different. He wanted both the human and the supernatural, all at once. Was that greed or genius? Aziraphale couldn’t tell. 

He wanted to be happy, thought the angel, with a horrible twinge of pity and sadness and love. Anthony J. Crowley, serpent of Eden, tempter and demon, wanted to kiss, and try sex, and find a home, and feel love, and be happy. It was all so human, so hopeful. Aziraphale could almost imagine his friend wandering the Earth, watching the humans go about their lives from the outside, figuring it all out. He would have been wearing that stretched out, curious look he got when he was focussed intently on something in the middle-distance. Like when they were in the park and he was watching someone about to walk into some silly trick of his, or when they were at the cinema and his favourite part of the movie was about to come on. He would sit up a bit straighter in his seat, shoulders down and eyebrows slightly raised, head tilted and rapt fascination in his every line. 

Was that how it happened, Aziraphale wondered. Had he watched the humans as he travelled all around the world, doing these crazy, wonderful things, and realised what he really wanted was the minutiae instead?

He wanted to be _happy_. 

It was the saddest, most beautiful thing the angel had ever seen, written on a narrow scrap of parchment he thought he had known entirely.

Carefully, the angel folded the little piece of paper back over itself, pausing to touch the word ‘_happy_’ one last time. Reaching carefully over, he slipped it into the front pocket of the demon’s jacket and straightened back up to stare at that pocket for a while. How could a demon think of such a thing, he wondered? How could he, an angel, not have thought of such a thing? Kisses and sex have crossed his mind so many times, mixed as it was between the mortal and the divine. He had even considered a home, but longevity made it impossible for that to be a physical place. Love, he understood of course. He was a being of love. But happiness… Never once in his six thousand years on Earth had Aziraphale ever been bold enough to think of happiness, real lasting happiness. It was a very depressing thought. Almost as depressing as the fact that Crowley had thought of happiness and it remained, uncrossed, on a list in his jacket pocket. 

“Hey,” 

The soft voice startled Aziraphale, causing him to jump and look around. Two golden eyes were watching him, across the couch. The angel felt his cheeks turn traitor on him, flushing as he took Crowley in, awake and watching him. Guilt rose through his body in waves. How long had the demon been watching? Had he seen him reading the list? 

Crowley’s eyes were half lidded from sleep. He did not move from his draped position, only turned his head slightly, to better fix Aziraphale in his sights. As the angel watched, the fingers of one of his long hands curled in on themselves, the thumb rubbing over the index - a little self-soothe the angel had noticed over the years. Every part of Aziraphale’s brain was screaming at him to say something, but words refused to come to his aid. Seconds slipped by. The time for excuses came and went. 

Eventually, it was Crowley who broke the silence. 

“I was going to show you it earlier,” he said, his voice oddly calm from his reclined position. “Flaked out, in the end.” There was no anger in his voice but it was very clear that he was referring to the list. He had seen, then. The angel squirmed. His voice was calm - usually it was Aziraphale who was the calm one. Not now, though. Now, his heart was thumping in his belly. Shame, guilt, pity. “Do you remember writing them together?” His friend asked, turning slightly to get comfortable on the couch. “In Venice?” 

“Yes,” the angel replied, voice small. “Well, some of them.” 

“Mm.” The demon flexed his feet slightly, a half stretch. 

Aziraphale forced his attention to remain on Crowley’s calm, expectant eyes.

“Did you…” He felt suddenly breathless, despite not really needing to breathe. “Did you really do all these things?” He asked the demon, all in a bit of a rush.

Crowley watched him for a long moment, then nodded. 

“All the ones I crossed out, yeah.” He glanced to the side, searching, and his gaze fell upon his glasses, sitting on a table nearby. In what Aziraphale appreciated to be an enormous effort, he did not reach out for them but turned back to meet the angel’s gaze again, instead. He wanted to have this conversation, Aziraphale realised, with a surge of admiration for his friend. Crowley wanted to have this conversation and he wanted to look him in the eye as he did so. “What do you think?” The demon asked, shy but steady. 

“Well…” the angel stalled for time. “I think you must have seen the most amazing things.”

“I have,” the demon nodded. “Made me think there might be other things I’m missing out on. Put them down too, for good measure. Haven’t crossed them out, though.”

They continued to stare at one another. Then the angel felt all of the emotions churning through him come to something of a head. He made a very quick, un-calculated decision. 

“May I sit?” He asked, motioning at the end of the couch, where Crowley had currently thrown his feet. 

The demon nodded, shifting his legs around to make some room. 

The angel sat. 

The couch was not large. Sitting on the edge of the end cushion, Aziraphale was only a few feet away from his friend and they could see every detail of one another perfectly. The angel could make out the reflection of a nearby lamp in the demon's eyes. He could see the tension around his jaw that had crept in, since waking. The blissful peace of sleep was gone. His eyes were cautious, and the angel knew that he would really rather have his glasses back on, but Crowley continued to resist reaching out for them. The demon was being brave, thought Aziraphale. He should really endeavour to be the same. 

“They aren’t easy things, the things you left uncrossed, you know,” he told his friend. 

The demon met his gaze unflinchingly. 

“I know that.”

“Did you leave the parchment where I might find it on purpose?”

A pause, then a shy, “yes.” 

Aziraphale bit slightly at the inside of his lower lip. 

“So, they are meant… for me?” 

“Yes.” The shyest ‘yes’ Aziraphale had ever heard from the demon - the shyest anything he had ever heard from him - though not quite as shy as the look in his eyes. The calmness was slipping away, now. A muscle had tightened in Crowley's temple. His pupils were almost oval. “This was all meant for you,” the demon told him, quietly. “You know that.”

The angel did. 

He knew that the list was meant for them. Why else would Crowley have gone out of his way to fulfil all of the entries, even if he had no particular interest in sailing, or coral reefs, or waterfalls? This was about them. It had always been about them. They had been meant to do it together but they never had. 

That was on him, thought Aziraphale, not Crowley. The angel had lost count of the number of times the demon entreated him to join him on his travels. He had lost count of all his little offers of time, and effort, and companionship. He had known how Crowley felt about him for years. (While the gentle warmth of the demons love had grown gradually enough to blend in with the background hum of Earth, there were occasional shifts or surges that Aziraphale, as a being of love, had felt acutely. He had felt the moment when Crowley first realised what the longing in his body and soul meant. He had felt the moment when Crowley realised it was a lasting thing. He had felt every seismic shift and deepening, over the years, hidden away behind the demon’s careful composure and his easy smiles. He had felt every time he had pulled away like a knife in Crowley’s heart). 

Aziraphale had known for a long time that this list had been about them, just like so many other things had been about them. It was his friend’s way of reaching out. And he wanted to reach back. He wanted to reach back more than anything on Earth. But there was just so much to lose by venturing down that path. There was no future for the pair of them and even now, with the end so close, the angel knew his love was not his, to lay where he wanted. Aziraphale’s love belonged to Heaven. It would go where Heaven decreed. There were sides and a plan. And Crowley stood with the opposition. He could not give his friend what he wanted. Maybe one day, but not now. 

But they didn’t have one day, the angel thought, the realisation of their finite existence on Earth hitting home hard. They might only have one year. 

He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, trying to calm himself.

“Hey,” the demon’s voice drew him softly back to the present, back to the small room at the back of his shop, back to the familiar couch and stacks of books, all bathed in golden lamplight. The angel opened his eyes and found Crowley watching him, head tilted slightly to one side, posture just a little vulnerable. “This isn’t an ultimatum, angel. I’m not trying to force your hand or anything. Its just been a very long, very odd decade, and I wanted you to know where I am. I don’t think that’s… unreasonable. Do you?” 

“No.” 

They watched one another, eyes raking eyes and hair, and mouths. 

Why was this so complicated, the angel sighed, into himself. If they had been human souls, trapped within these mortal shells, everything would be so different. He had never envied mankind so entirely as he did now, in this moment. What would he do, right now, if he were a mortal man? Imagine there was nothing else, Aziraphale forced himself to think. Imagine you were made for nothing more than life, imagine that you were put on Earth to make choices, and to learn the difference between them. Imagine there was no absolute good or evil, no hellfire or damnation, no rapture or righteous judgement. Imagine that nobody would ever know - no, better, that nobody would ever care - what you did with your love. What would you do in such a moment?

His eyes came to rest on his friend’s lips. They were nearer to red than pink, the inside edge of them just a little wet. Watching them, the angel felt himself settle into a decision. He knew what he would do if this was just about the two of them. He had known for a very long time. 

“We could cross one thing off your list, if you like,” he told the demon, voice very small in the quiet of the room.

Across the couch, Crowley sat up a bit straighter.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale’s heart was suddenly beating incredibly fast. He had crossed the threshold. He had made a choice. He had jumped, but the fall was almost as terrifying as the leap. “If you’d like to, that is.” 

“I’d like.” 

“Okay.” Could a heart beat right out of a chest? It felt like it could.

There was a moment of silence between them and Crowley raised an eyebrow, showing just a hint of that trademark bravado. 

“Which one?” 

The angel felt a flicker of irritation. He looked away, cheeks flushing crimson. 

“Don’t be presumptuous,” he muttered. 

The demon’s answering smile, wide and warm, soothed the irritation right out of him, however. “I wouldn’t dream of it…” His voice was lower than usual and oddly liquid. As Aziraphale turned to meet his eyes, the last semblance of control fled the interaction. 

And they were moving. 

Long fingers were reaching out to brush his cheek. The demon’s warm body was shifting closer, across the couch, until they were only a foot or so apart. A hand was sliding around to frame his jaw. Aziraphale pressed back into it. Crowley’s palm was warm, welcoming. Lifting his own hand, the angel let his fingers slide up the demon’s forearm until they could encircle one delicate wrist. They did reach all the way round. It was an almost perfect fit. The movement made the both of them shiver a little. Crowley let out a low hiss. 

They hung there, for a moment, revelling in the contact. Aziraphale did not know why he was suddenly allowing this. They had never ventured this far into desire before, but there was a feeling of desperation in the air. This might well be their last year on Earth. After six thousand, this one might be it. It might all be over and he could not let Crowley be taken from this Earth, into eternity, without being kissed. He could not stand the idea of never having touched his friend like this. It was as if he had reached some line he could not cross. And the demon’s bravery was making him feel brave. 

Lifting his other hand, he tentatively traced the hard line of Crowley’s neck. His heart was going too fast and his mouth was suddenly dry, but at least he had done this before, Aziraphale thought. At least he knew how this was supposed to work. The demon, sitting opposite him, was taught with anticipation. He had not moved since establishing contact and the angel suspected it was because he did not know how to proceed. Crowley had always been a watcher. Now, he waited for the angel to make a move, unsure but excited. 

“I can’t offer you a home,” Aziraphale whispered, pushing past the tightness in his throat, “that’s not safe for us. We serve different masters and I’m only beginning to rectify that, in my mind. I cannot offer anything more-,” he felt his cheeks flush and cursed his mortal body, “physically or emotionally. I just think that, for me at least, that would be binding and I… and I-,” 

“This isn’t an ultimatum,” the demon reminded him. 

“I know…” Aziraphale’s eyes flickered closed. 

The palm of the demon’s hand slid from the side of his face to the side of his neck. His thumb found the angel’s pulse and traced a calming circle there. 

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I know.” 

“We can stop right now.” 

“I know…” he swallowed, then the words spilled out of him a little too fast. “I just don’t want you doing this with anyone else.” 

“Hey.” His friend’s voice cut through the internal buzz of anxiety - a little lower than usual, a little rough. Aziraphale opened his eyes and found the demon watching him, a study in complete sincerity. “I don’t want to do this with anyone else, angel. There is no one else. Never has been.” 

The moment wavered a little before him. Nobody else. There had been nobody else. This was almost certainly a mistake, but it was a mistake neither of them wanted to make with anyone else, and they wanted it so badly - and it was just a kiss, the angel reasoned. What was a kiss, really, against the ending of the world? 

“Have you really never…?” He asked, weakly, eyes falling to Crowley’s lips. “Not ever?"

The demon gave a little shrug. “Never seemed relevant, before.” His tongue darted out to lick the inside of his lower lip, a little nervously. “So are you going to kiss me, then, or what?” 

“Only if you’re quiet,” the angel chided, feeling a rush of irritation balanced perfectly with a rush of love. He knew him so well - knew every inch of the pushy, sarcastic demon sitting across from him - knew everything apart from how he felt, and what he dreamed of, and how he tasted. They knew everything about one another, and yet nothing, really. They shared all of history and nothing more. But he wanted more, thought the angel, and so did Crowley. And if they couldn’t have it all at least they could have this. 

As the demon's fingers tightened against the side of his neck, Aziraphale leant forwards, pressing his lips into the soft mouth across from him. The move was tender and awkward. Both of their mouths remained closed and neither of them tilted their heads quite enough, that first time. Their noses bumped a little and the demon stayed entirely too still, perhaps afraid of causing the whole thing dissolve into a dream around them. Aziraphale understood. He was not entirely sure it was real either but the brush of their skin, brief as it was, felt wonderful and when he drew back and opened his eyes, it was Crowley he saw looking back at him - all gold irises and huge black pupils - and that comforted him immensely. 

Letting himself sink beneath a liberating tide of emotion, the angel leant back in and brushed a second kiss against his friend’s lips. Then a third. Then a fourth. By the fifth, the demon had begun to relax against him. His lips parted in gentle exploration, his hand came to rest in the crook of the angel’s neck, thumb stroking gently. By their seventh kiss, his tongue ventured out to touch the angel’s. By the tenth, he was pressing back into him. Then, as Aziraphale pulled back from their tenth kiss and dazedly whispered his name, it was as if some dam broke inside of Crowley. He surged forwards, closing the gap between them, hands grasping for purchase against the angel's clothes. He angled his head, pressing closer, mouth hungry and eager - a little too eager, to be honest. Kissing Crowley was be a bit of a wet experience. He was so new to it all, but he was so desperate to please - and he made these soft little noises at the back of his throat which shot right through the angel, leaving him a bit quivery. So Aziraphale just drew him up against the back of the couch and, after a bit of experimentation, they found an angle which worked. The kisses become less sweet and more demanding, less tentative and more heated. It was beautiful. They were beautiful. This was paradise. 

Sinking into the cushions, they buried themselves in one another. They gave in to sensation, all panting mouths and grasping hands, taking turns to catch their breath, faces pressed into necks and hands twined in hair. And suddenly the whole situation was not just heated but all consuming. Crowley figured out how to do this incredible thing with his tongue which made the angel's fingers tighten into his hair, body tightening inside his clothes. Groaning, they pulled themselves closer and Aziraphale found a spot on the outside of the demon’s thigh which he could stroke and cause his friend to hiss. They were amazing, he thought, heartbeat thudding so hard in his ears the thought he might discorporate. He and Crowley felt amazing. The thought caused him to smile dazedly against the demon's warm mouth. He could barely believe it. He could barely believe that this was Crowley pressing against him, smelling of cedar, and woodsmoke, and sandalwood. He could barely believe that it was Crowley’s mouth, tracing wet heat against his neck, Crowley’s fingers pulling against his shirt. But it was. This was real, the angel reminded himself, through the rising euphoria. Not a dream. Not a fantasy. Not a willing human who looked a little like him in the half light. This was real. This was Crowley. Here, with him. 

Aziraphale had promised himself that he would pull back when the time came but, when the time came, he nearly didn’t. He was a fraction of a second away from admitting defeat, from sliding his hands to his friend’s hips and pulling him into his lap, and begging the demon to let him fulfil every possible permutation of their list, But, at that exact moment, Crowley gave a shuddering little whimper which drew him back to reality. 

The angel broke from their embrace, looking up at his friend, the noise of their ragged breaths filling the bookshop’s silence. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Sorry.” A grimace slithered across the demon’s face. “I’m fine. Just a little touch and go there, for a second.” 

A flicker of worry shot through Aziraphale. 

“Did I hurt you?” 

“No, no…” Crowley gave an exhale of a laugh and looked down. The hand that wasn’t tangled in Aziraphale’s shirt was clenched around himself, through his jeans, looking very preventative. “I’m fine, angel. This is all just… very...” he licked at the edge of his lower lip, then drew it back into his mouth slowly, as if sucking the taste from it, “…very new.” 

The angel glanced down as the demon raised his eyebrows. 

“Oh - right!” 

“Yep.” The demon popped the ‘p’ of the word and breathed out slowly, tilting his head right back to expose his throat. Aziraphale’s hand, still cupping the back of his neck, felt the little folds of skin he had seen earlier wrinkle against his palm. He rubbed a thumb against the side of them and was rewarded with a soft groan that vibrated delightfully through both of them. He felt himself get a little harder. Crowley gave another grimace. “We should stop,” he said, in a tight voice, to the ceiling. “If you want to stop.” 

“Oh, I-,” the angel drifted off, lost in the sensation of the demon’s throat moving beneath his thumb, lost in the softness of his skin. “I mean, we don’t have to… not yet…” 

The demon tilted his head back forwards. For just a moment, he watched Aziraphale with unrepentant hunger, then he closed his eyes and gave a long groan, leaning away. 

“Agh…” He sat back on one of his legs. Aziraphale’s hand fell from his neck. “We should definitely stop.” Lifting both hands, the demon rubbed them vigorously over his head. The movement left his short hair tumbling over itself - the most beautiful look he had ever sported, thought the angel. So very beautiful. 

The angel’s eyes slid from that ruffled hair, to the lines of his friend’s neck, to the rapid rise and fall of his chest, to his legs - one folded underneath him now, one planted out to the side - to the shape of his very hard cock, straining against his jeans. Breathing out a little heavily, he forced himself on, to the long sweep of Crowley’s thigh, to the one foot the angel could see, planted on the floor between them, toes curled against the hardwood. He was so beautiful. Perhaps thoughts about love and choice were just nonsense, the angel thought. Perhaps The Great Plan was nonsense. Perhaps God had forgotten about them all and everything Heaven and Hell were doing was nonsense - perhaps this, here, was the only thing that was real. 

Heaving a sigh, his eyes travelled back up to meet his friend’s slightly reproachful gaze. 

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s not what I want either,” the demon hissed. His voice was hoarse and slightly strangled, something primal escaping him. “But I’m not just a line on a list, Aziraphale. You don’t get to cross me off and forget about me afterwards.”

The burning want in the air cooled a little. 

The angel shifted uncomfortably. 

“I wasn’t…” he began, mortification creeping in. “I wouldn’t…” 

The demon rolled back over the leg he had been sitting on, back against the opposite arm of the couch. Shifting a little awkwardly, he pulled at his jeans, arranging himself. 

“Angel, I know you,” he hissed, properly hissed this time, bending one leg in to give himself relief against the tightness of his clothes. “You get caught up in things and you move too fast, then you scare yourself and you pull away for half a hundred years, and I’m left wondering what in Heaven I did wrong. Don’t correct me, you know it’s true.” 

Aziraphale stared. The fact that Crowley had better self control than him was coupling rather horribly with the fact that the demon was probably right about his reactions, and with the embarrassment that was rising up within him, now that desire was fading back. It all pooled together in his belly, making him feel a bit sick. His throat felt tight, sore. For the first time in centuries, he thought he might cry, so he looked pointedly away. 

“We might not have half a hundred years, right now,” the demon murmured, his voice a bit gentler this time. “I’m just being pragmatic.”

“I know.” The angel’s voice was small. 

“If things were different…” Crowley trailed off, tilting his head to recapture the angel’s gaze. “Aziraphale, you know where I am on this. You know what I want. The rest is just kind of a package deal. You want me, you have to choose me.”

“I know.”

“And you can’t offer me that. You said it yourself.” 

“I know, Crowley.” 

A few seconds passed in awkward silence. 

“So, you’re not going to be pissy with me?” 

“I do not get ‘pissy’,” Aziraphale muttered, pissily. 

“Oh, angel,” the demon leant back in his seat, eyeing him fondly. “You do…” It was a little tease, a gentle nudge back towards the normal state of their conversations and, though it was technically a sleight, the angel felt strangely grateful for it. He threw his friend a haughty look. 

“I do not.” 

“All right… Okay…” 

“Okay.”

They watched one another. 

The clock on the office desk ticked, softly. 

Slowly, the feeling in the room began to dissipate back towards normality. After an awkward thirty seconds, the demon struck up conversation again, embarking on a half-hearted diatribe about having to the continent for a temptation, next week. Aziraphale listened to him ramble, feeling very soft and a little embarrassed - though markedly less than he would have imagined feeling, having just been wrapped around his friend, their bodies and tongues entwined. In truth, it felt utterly, disturbingly natural to have been kissing Crowley and not one bolt of lightning had come down to smite either of them out of existence. Made you wonder what God was really planning, the angel thought, to himself. 

Across the couch, Crowley gave a dramatic head movement, expounding on some point about the Eurostar, and the angel found himself smiling slightly, despite the situation. He had no idea what he was doing. Everything was a mess and the world might well end in a year, but he had a friend who could imagine happiness out of duty, and love out of an enemy, and who kissed so beautifully, and was not afraid to tell him when he was being a pissy little bitch. He was very lucky, really - even if he was a terrible excuse for an angel. 

As the demon stood to leave a bit later, having pulled socks and shoes and jacket back on, there was an awkward little segue into the two of them standing a bit too close. It happened under the guise of the demon handing the angel back a book, which he had picked up from a shelf just a few moments previous. Aziraphale took the book, not saying anything about the pretence, and his friend cleared his throat and looked down at his feet. 

“Listen, I don’t want to make a big deal about this,” he grumbled, “but I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?” Aziraphale shifted his gaze, trying to catch sight of his friend’s pupils through the glasses he had just put back on. He was unsuccessful. The current generation of mirrored lens was more impenetrable than those which had come before. A metaphor for the times, the angel thought. 

“Yeah.” Crowley cleared his throat again. “I know this was all about seventeen million miles out of your comfort zone, but I’ve been having a really shitty time and I needed this, tonight.” 

That warmed the angel. He looked down at the demon’s hands, held loosely at his side. 

“You’re very welcome, my dear boy,” he murmured to the left hand, a little unable to lift his eyes to Crowley’s face. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.”

“Nh,” the demon gave a little noise of dissent. “It’s nothing. Just, you know… finishing up with the boy, and being on my own again, and not really being able to do anything more until the end, and, well, knowing there might be an end, and this might all end up-,” he waved a hand, vaguely. “You know… Flaming pile of goo. Big war. Eternity of suffering. The whole Armageddon thing.”

“It might not,” Aziraphale reminded the demon, chancing a hopeful look up. “If we’ve done our job right, it might just be okay.” 

Crowley held his gaze for a long few seconds. Even through the glasses, Aziraphale could tell his eyes were full of love and sadness. 

“It might,” he conceded, very softly. 

A long few moments passed in silence, then the demon gave an awkward little side step. 

“Right, well, I suppose I’d better be off.”

“It is rather late. Or early, actually.”

“Expect you have lots of good deeds to be doing, later this morning.” 

“I do, actually.”

“Sort of time your lot do their work, don’t they?”

“Yes, quite.” 

“Demons tend to be busier in the evenings.”

“Easier for the temptations, I imagine.”

“Yup. Best time of day. It’s the darkness, I suspect. Gets people feeling all lonely.”

They watched one another carefully for a moment, each clearly thinking of their own evening, and loneliness, and the temptations therein. Then, Crowley reached into his front pocket and withdrew the small square of folded paper. Running his thumb one last time over it, he held it out.

“Here, you should keep this.” 

The angel flushed. “I couldn’t possibly…” 

“It was always for you.” The demon offered the parchment a little further, pressing it against the side of Aziraphale’s hand. “I want you to have it. You can read it and see all the places I’ve been. Ask me about them any time - or don’t, if you don’t want to.” He gave a little shrug. “Maybe the world won’t end and I’ll take you back to see it all, sometime. Or not. Either way…” he pressed it awkwardly into the angel’s hand and, reflexively, the angel took it. For a moment, their fingers remained pressed against one another’s, and then Crowley pulled away. The small square stayed clutched between Aziraphale’s index and thumb. “I’m abroad for a few weeks,” the demon continued, his voice returning to something close to normal, heavy on the practiced disinterest. “I can call when I get back - there’s a new sushi place in Farringdon, might be of interest to you. Read about it in Time Out the other week.”

“I’d like that.” 

“Okay.” They watched one another for a moment. “I’ll ring when I’m back in town, then.” 

Aziraphale took a slow deep breath and tasted the memory of his friend on his tongue. His beautiful friend, who wanted to live, and love, and kiss - a demon who wanted to be happy. How rare and wonderful Crowley was, in this world. 

“Crowley?” He caught him as he turned to leave, reaching out to take the closer of the demon’s hands in his own. “One for the road,” he murmured, blushing to the tips of his ears but dedicated to the movement. Lifting the demon’s hand to his lips, he turned it over and kissed the palm. It was a soft, chaste movement which he hoped was imbued with all that he would offer Crowley, if Heaven and Hell and the world were different places, or if they had been mortal souls. 

Crowley looked at him, unguarded vulnerability in his every line. 

“Thank you, angel,” he whispered, curling the tips of his fingers around Aziraphale’s. 

There was a moment of incredible tenderness, then the angel forced himself to release his friend’s hand and step away. Giving a little exhale, Crowley stepped in the opposite direction, towards the door of the bookshop. Pushing his way out into the street, he set off towards the car, giving a little glance back at the angel through the window. Aziraphale noticed that he had closed his fingers in a fist around the kissed palm, and was holding it tight against his side. He held it as he weaved between two taxis and through the pedestrians on the opposite pavement, all the way back to the haphazardly parked Bentley - parking ticket on its windscreen miraculously disappearing as he opened the door - then he was inside, and the engine was turning over, and he was vanishing into the London pre-dawn. 

Regret was not something Aziraphale was used to feeling. He tended not to dwell too much on the road not taken. There had always been time to revisit old roads, after all, if he found he still wished to, at a later date. Still, a large part of him wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake to let Crowley leave, that night. What if it all went wrong and the world did end? What if they were both sucked away into opposite ends of eternity, and war, and destruction, and all they had shared was a single kiss? Sitting across from him earlier, one part of it all seemed the only thing the angel could offer. Now, it seemed like such a small token against the enormous weight of time, against all that they have shared and how much they actually meant to one another. 

Aziraphale loved his friend. Crowley loved him back, though the angel could not even fathom how that was possible, for a creature supposedly wrenched from all that was Light. But then Crowley was not like other demons, or other angels for that matter. He wanted to kiss, and find a home, and be happy. He wanted to be happy, Aziraphale thought, closing his eyes against the orange light of never sleeping London. The end of the world was around the corner and the battle lines were drawn and Crowley had just figured out that he wanted to be happy. It was the saddest thing the angel had ever known. 

Drawing back into the shadows of his shop, Aziraphale moved back to the couch where he had sat, wrapped around the demon, and drew the list from his pocket. He rubbed a finger over the words, written in his best friend’s handwriting, and spoke them quietly inside his mind. Kiss, love, sex, home, happy - things they were not meant for, things no angel or demon was ever meant for. What was God playing at, letting them feel like this, letting them want these things? What was it meant to achieve, with the end of the world around the corner, and the sides that they were supposed to belong to feeling so incredibly distant. He was so lonely but his love was not his to give away. How could a creature born of heaven chose what they wanted to be, or who they loved? It did not work that way. It had never worked that way. You could not just ignore what you were born to be. 

He should draw away from Crowley, Aziraphale knew. There was only more pain in remaining near. But love was not rational. And the world was confusing. And there might be only a year left of it, the angel thought. He could not face eternity without grasping every last second of his world, and every second of his demon. So he would meet Crowley for dinner when he returned, he thought. He would stay as close as he was allowed, until he could not anymore. And then? Aziraphale just had to trust that God had a plan, because he was fresh out of ideas. 

Sitting down on the couch he rubbed a finger over the folded square of parchment, feeling the shadow of his friend's power. He just had to trust there was a plan. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me lurking on [IG](https://www.instagram.com/heycaricari/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heycaricari), and [Tumblr](https://heycaricari.tumblr.com/) @heycaricari


End file.
